Panasonic to Make 14nm SoCs at Intel

SAN FRANCISCO — Panasonic will make SoCs in a low-power flavor of Intel's 14nm process technology. The Japanese company is the sixth announced customer for a foundry business that Intel says is strategic and expanding its packaging capabilities.

"We are doing extremely well getting customers who can use our technology," Sunit Rikhi, general manager of Intel's foundry group, said in a talk at Semicon West, though he would not provide details. "We are in this business to grow, and it's strategically an important vector in our Intel strategy."

Other companies making or planning to make chips in Intel's fabs include Achronix, Altera, Microsemi, Netronome, and Tablula. Rikhi described Intel's foundry business in broad terms: "We need to demonstrate our service orientation and earn trust of customers."

He suggested that the low-power variant of Intel's 14nm process is relatively new. Intel uses a general-purpose 22nm process but supports multiple flavors of its 32nm process.

When asked about chip stacks, Rikhi said Intel is offering several options and plans to start work with outside packaging companies soon. "So far we have offered integrated packaging in-house, but we are beginning to talk to some customers about their buying wafers from us and having packaging done by OSATs. I would expect we will do that before too long."

Intel expects to make 10nm chips without extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, he said, reiterating comments from Intel's Mark Bohr. However, Rikhi expressed enthusiasm for getting access to next-generation scanners and larger wafers as soon as possible. "EUV is like 450mm wafers. When it comes, it is great."

Rikhi discussed at a high level Intel's approach to keeping its product IP separate from that of its customers. He seemed pretty practical in his attitude about knowing the company needs to build credibility as a foundry.

If Intel serves company A and company B, it cannot even accidentally pass along information about company A's designs to B or vice versa. Generally, this means each company's business account at Intel should be staffed by different individuals who are forbidden to interact.

Intel is used to dealing with Apple, Google, Microsoft, as well as all of the PC OEM's that are competitors. I'm sure that their experience is being leveraged with respect to staffing to prevent IP contamination in the custom foundry business. I think whether or not Intel is a competitor is relatively minor..